LOTTERY

A frequent lottery player who says she "had a dream about winning" cashed her $47 million ticket Friday.

Germana Sodre, 47, of Hollywood, claimed the Florida Lotto jackpot from the drawing held on May 21. She chose to receive her winnings as a lump-sum payment of $30,863,975.44.

It was the largest jackpot won via a ticket sold in Broward County since the Florida Lotto began in 1988. The numbers were 10-12-23-34-38-53.

Sodre told lottery officials she often plays Florida Lotto and Fantasy 5, and that she had a dream about winning and purchased her ticket the day of the drawing at Stop N Shop, 2960 Taft St., Hollywood.

She told them she put the ticket in her purse and forgot about it until a week later, when she went to FloridaLottery.com and checked her numbers.

"I couldn't believe what I saw, so I called my husband and had him check them as well," she told lottery officials. "I was so excited when he confirmed that all the numbers matched, and I haven't been able to sleep since."

Sodre could not be reached for further comment.

Stop N Shop received a bonus commission of $180,000 for selling the ticket.

Palm Beach County's largest Lotto payout was $53 million on a ticket sold in 2000 in Jupiter. Miami-Dade County had a single $56 million winner in 2001. South Floridians have gotten a piece of larger jackpots — in 1999, a Pompano Beach man bought one of three winning tickets, splitting $81 million — but no single ticket sold in Broward has netted a prize this large. Even the one Broward Powerball winner, a Hollywood woman, bought her $73.8 million in Royal Palm Beach in 2010.

This jackpot had been building since Jan. 18. The Lotto went 34 draws without a winner, one shy of the game's record, which was set last year.

The largest Florida Lotto jackpot won by a single winner was $81.6 million, in 2000, in New Port Richey. The biggest shared jackpot came in 1990, when six players split $106.5 million.